Аманда Хокинг - Flutter

“It was an oil tanker that crashed by Alaska in 1989.” Bobby glanced back at me. “I didn’t really know that off the top of my head. They were just talking about it on TV a lot.”

“But there isn’t an oil spill, is there? Not really?” I squinted at the TV, trying to see if I could see a sheen on the water around the tanker. It was dark, there, so I couldn’t make out much but what the helicopter lights flashed on, but still, I couldn’t see much of an oil spill in the ocean. “So what’s the big deal? How does that make you feel like the end of the world?”

“Because of why the tanker crashed.” He stopped sketching and stared at the TV in kind of amazement. “The whole crew died.”

“What do you mean?” I sat up more. “Like when they the hit land?”

“No, no, they were all dead before that. Nobody was driving it, and they just crashed. The radio transmissions they were getting from them weren’t right, and they sent boats out to check up on them, but nobody knows what happened. Finally, two days ago, they lost all contact with them, and then boom! It drove right into the island,” Bobby nodded at the screen. “It’s the creepiest, most bizarre thing I ever heard of, like in Aliens when they go to rescue that deserted ship or whatever. But real.”

“What are you talking about? How did the crew all die? Did they run out of food or oxygen or had massive mutiny or something?”

“They didn’t run of oxygen. They’re on Earth. You don’t run of oxygen,” Bobby rolled his eyes at me.

“But the thing is, nobody knows why they’re dead. Some of the crew is still unaccounted for, but both the lifeboats are still attached, so they don’t know they could’ve gotten off. Officials are trying to keep it under wraps, but rumor has it that they were all mutilated. Like really gory, horror movie stuff.

Throats ripped out and all that. Anderson was talking to a guy that had been there, and he was just about puking talking about it.”

“Holy hell. Really?” I leaned forward, staring more intently at the TV. “No way. That kind of thing doesn’t happen in real life. I mean, a lot of the crew is missing. Maybe they had something to do with it.”

“Maybe, but they’re not counting on having any survivors at this point,” Bobby said. “They had a crew of thirty, but only twenty-four bodies.”

“That’s pretty messed up.” A chill ran down my spine and I shook my head. “It’s really creepy.”

“Yeah, I know,” Bobby agreed somberly.

“Where was the tanker coming from?”

“I don’t know,” Bobby shrugged. “I think like Europe or Russia or something.”

“Okay, so be honest,” Milo said, walking into the living room and breaking up our intense fascination with the television. “How does my hair look?” He ran a hand through his dark brown hair and did a little twirl, but really, it didn’t look that much different than before. Mae had mostly just done a trim on his hair.

“Sexy, as always,” Bobby grinned at him. He set his sketch pad aside, momentarily to forgetting about his homework assignment to pay attention to Milo. Milo sat down the floor next to him, and in between kissing and flirting, they started talking about the tanker crash on the television.

Personally, it was creeping me out too much, so I decided to go outside and play with Matilda. I had to bribe with three dog treats to get her to leave Jack’s side, and I was starting to think maybe she loved him even more than I did. The stone patio out back was slick from a slushy snow thing that was coming down. It was November, and this was the first snow of the season, so I knew it wouldn’t last long.

Matilda skidded through it, but she didn’t seem to mind. Very little in life seemed to upset her, other than Jack’s absence. I couldn’t shake the news story, and I was really starting to regret going into the living room. I glanced back through the French doors at Mae and Jane talking and laughing, and spending time with them might’ve been almost as creepy as hearing more about the dead crew. I let the snow flakes melt in my hair and tried to forget all about it.

Jack went back to sleeping in the den, but he woke me up while it was still light to see if I wanted to go apartment hunting with him. I knew that I should, but daylight was still really hard on me.

Besides that, I didn’t really want to. The thought of moving still didn’t exactly thrill me, but I pretended like it did. I told him to take lots of pictures for me and fell back to sleep the instant he left.

My sleep was incredibly restless, though. I kept having dreams about the oil tanker crash in Canada.

An unseen monster was slaughtering them, tearing them apart with claws and teeth that came from some invisible figure. Everything was splattered with blood and viscera, but there was nothing appetizing about it. It was horrendous, I wanted to scream and throw up. The crew members were crying and pleading for the lives, but nobody listened. Nothing they did to save themselves could help. After all the crew was dead, there was a total silent blackness on the ship. For some reason, that turned into an image: huge brown eyes, my brother’s Milo’s eyes.

I woke up and I still wanted to scream, even though the last thing I had seen hadn’t really been scary.

It freaked me out, though, in the worst way. As I tried to catch my breath and remind myself that everything was okay, I thought about how weird it was that vampires had dreams. The Lost Boys had not prepared me for this. In fact, I was starting to think that whoever wrote it had never met a vampire in his life.

Since I couldn’t shake the dream myself, I got up to enlist some assistance. I considered Jane, but if she was sleeping, she really did need her rest. Besides that, Mae was probably in her room as well, and for some reason, I didn’t feel like talking to her. So I went next door, to Milo’s room, and I went in without knocking. Of course, I made sure to listen in first, and Bobby wasn’t there, so I knew it was okay to intrude.

“Hey, wake up,” I said, walking into his room. It was a little messier than I expected it to be, but I figured that was entirely Bobby. The clothes strewn about the floor appeared to mostly be his, and they were definitely his art supplies clogging up the floor. Milo was in bed, laying at weird angle, with his feet dangling off the side.

“Why?” Milo mumbled, his face buried in his pillow.

“Cause.” I jumped on the bed next to him harder than I needed to, making it bounce him up.

“Why are you even up? You’re never up before me,” Milo grumbled, rolling onto his back so he could face me. “What time is it?”

“It’s six. It’s not that early,” I shrugged. “Where’s Bobby?”

“School,” Milo yawned. “Where’s your better half?”

“He’s… out,” I answered vaguely. Milo didn’t even notice that I was trying to be secretive, but I decided that I couldn’t keep anything from him anyway. “Okay. If I tell you something, you promise not to tell anyone?”

“No.” Milo still wasn’t intrigued by the prospect of a secret, and I hated him for it. This happened all the time growing up. I wanted to tell him a secret, but he never cared, so he never had to agree to any provisions. His apathy was pretty tricky.

“No, you actually do wanna this, but you seriously can’t tell anyone. Not yet. I’m just not ready for people to know.” I wasn’t sure how Mae would react, and I didn’t want to see what Peter did. I hadn’t talked to him since Jack came back, and that was probably just as well.

“I’m still telling Bobby,” Milo said, stifling a yawn.

“Fine! Tell Bobby!” I sighed. “But come on! You have to pretend to be excited about this!”